Meta will listen into AI conversations to personalize ads

Meta, having committed hundreds of billions to AI infrastructure and talent, says it will start using people's conversations and interactions with its AI services to create personalized content and advertising. This applies to Meta AI, the company's web-based chat interface, and apps that integrate Meta AI, such as Facebook, …

[RLyons]

Don't trust them as far as I can throw them, which is not very far. They've lied on everything else before, and at worst got slapped on the wrist. Add to that most AI uses will produce nothing but garbage, and this is nothing but another form of enshitification for the company making the user the product.

[Anonymous Coward]

For once Zuck's setup is almost honest ..

.. about spying on you every second you're even *near* Meta technology.

AFAIK even the Facebook icons on other websites are actually trackers.

[Sp1z]

Re: For once Zuck's setup is almost honest ..

I block all Meta, Google, Twitter and TikTok IP addresses at my network border because of this shit.

[DrewPH]

Cover your bases

Prefix every sentence with

"Further to my proposal to appoint a disabled Native American Pope as Secretary of State for LGBTQIA+ Affairs, ..."

[Grunchy]

“There’s no opt out”

I bet there is!

[UCAP]

Re: “There’s no opt out”

Simple way - don't use Meta.

[Korev]

Re: “There’s no opt out”

It's not too hard to avoid Facebook and Instagram; however, there's an assumption here that everybody uses Whatsapp and the people I know who don't use it miss out.

For example, all the cycling groups I'm in organise rides in WhatsApp, those who don't use it miss out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: “There’s no opt out”

I doubt it makes a difference, the microphone from your wife's device, or your kid's or your friends are just as capable of hearing you nearby and using those conversations.

[UCAP]

Hold on ...

WhatsApp is supposed to be end-to-end encrypted; how can Meta listen in to those conversations unless they have established a back door into the system?

[Oliver Mayes]

Re: Hold on ...

Because the person you're talking to *is* meta?

Their chatbots just log the conversation as it happens and link it to the user.

[Wellyboot]

Re: Hold on ...

Any interaction with any Meta App is childishly easy to for Meta to process as they will.

For any communications;

voice* > app (to do with as it pleases) > app crypto module > encrypted data outbound to recipient ...

and at the other end of crypto link

... encrypted data inbound to recipient > recipient app crypto module > app (to do with as it pleases) > speaker*

The end-to-end encryption only applies to any data actually in transit between instances of the app. This is why governments keep asking for the data, Meta would only have to build a MITM function into the app.

Think of the encryption here as passing a postcard along a line people who pinkie promise to keep their eyes shut until the last one puts it in an envelope, writes the address and posts it.

*via local OS with all the security we know that entails.

[Headley_Grange]

If this works as well as normal online ads....

Me to AI:- "Is it ok to leave my brand new lawnmower full of petrol in the shed all winter?"

Later that same minute.... my screen is full of adverts for lawn mowers.

[Jedit]

"Later that same minute..."

Well, presumably it isn't OK to leave your lawnmower in the shed all winter with a full tank. So they're helpfully providing adverts for the replacement!

[haile-unlikely]

Send the query on a burner phone

They're selling on your query to insurance companies, to add a risk-surcharge to your home insurance coverage.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Good thing I got bored after playing with it once or twice. Now when it pops up intruding on my user flow, I just close it. Not interested - at all.